Former England captain Michael Vaughan has warned the new Test head coach Stephen Fleming, saying there is no MS Dhoni as his captain in English cricket.
The former wicket-keeper was behind all the on-field decisions while Fleming handled the players off the field, keeping the team ready. However, with Dhoni leaving the captaincy, Fleming failed to find success and was ordinary as a coach in other leagues. His ideas were called outdated, and the CSK owners decided to part ways with the former New Zealand captain. “Fleming is very well respected, renowned for being a very good manager and tactician.
I’ve seen him at the IPL and one of the problems he might discover in English cricket is that we do not have an MS Dhoni to be his captain," Vaughan wrote in The Telegraph. “Dhoni ran the ship at Chennai Super Kings, and Fleming had some really good backroom coaches as well. Eric Simons was a wonderful bowling coach for him, a master at getting the white ball to swing. His team was built around skill with the ball, not express pace.
I wonder whether that is an indication that the skill side of bowling will come back into the England Test team rather than just out-and-out speed," he added. Fleming will work closely with Joe Root, who has been appointed as Test captain after Ben Stokes' retirement from international cricket. He was not the England and Wales Cricket Board's first choice, but the refusal of Andy Flower put the Kiwi legend in the front seat. Vaughan highlighted one advantage Fleming has as a coach, saying he has experience of modern players, which could help him change the mindset of the team.
“Fleming also knows how to handle the modern player, guys who can earn more in one franchise gig than we did playing a whole summer for England," he said. “They are a different breed now and need to be handled accordingly. We all want flamboyance at the right time, but you can’t play flamboyant, aggressive, entertaining cricket every day and I hope he is going to really drill that into them. I will also be interested to see who coaches the players. Fleming is not a hands-on coach, he is a manager," Vaughan added.